msycamore

Darth Mallwalker said:

msycamore said:

if I had the raw video files available.

'tis the season to refresh your usenet provider ... ;)

Ah, that's wonderful! Never wanted to take up on Arnie.d's offer due to being occupied with other things, that damn THX 1138 I never seem to get done. ;)

This is great stuff, thank you Mallwalker and Arnie.d! :) Hopefully me or someone else will be able to continue where Arnie left off.

Thanks for the update, h_h. Really looking forward to your improved one! and by all means take your time, a motivated hairy_hen working on this will result in a better track.

TServo2049, sorry I missed your post. I downloaded that audio file some time ago but haven't gotten around to listen to it yet. When I do, I will definitely pay attention during that part of the opening you described.

OMEN!-_-! said: 

Yes, the 2004 dvd and by extention the blu-ray transfers have a few clipped whites, but neither the GOUT nor the SWE LD are 100% accurate representations of the theatrical releases either IMHO. In those cloud city screencaps, the flesh tones of the SWE LD are far too orange (all the characters look like they've been tangoed) and the GOUT is far too dark, with black crush, resulting in lots of shadow detail loss, very much present. Of the three screencaps, the 2004 dvd screencap is the most balanced and 'correct' looking, with flesh tones the most accurate as well, even with the whites blown out IMHO.

The reason I posted that screencap of the SWE LD was to demonstrate how much detail that get lost in the clipped whites in some scenes, not to say that the SWE LD or the GOUT have a perfect colortiming, because they haven't, far from it.

OMEN!-_-! said: 

The way I see it, the white crush is there on the blu-ray, that detail cannot be recovered, even if you were to reduce the brightness, so why not boost the brightness slightly more to make the image overall more appealing. You don't lose much more than what's already been lost due to white crush on the original blu-ray (and of course only in the few scenes throughout the film where white crush is an issue) and you get a far more appealing transfer throughout the whole film. 

Why I mentioned boosting the brightness being an issue have nothing to do with clipped whites, that's an whole other issue, don't know if things can be slightly recovered or not, I have in fact not even seen the blu-ray, so maybe things are slightly different compared to the DVD version. Anyway, the reason I mentioned upping the brightness being an issue is that several scenes have already been brightened for the SE compared to how they looked originally.

OMEN!-_-! said: 

BTW msycamore, just to clarify one thing, you said (or at least implied) in your post that i'm using just one colour/brightness setting for Star Wars. That is actually very much incorrect.

I didn't say or even imply that, I just mentioned that one setting cannot solve the many problems these transfers have, you really have to do a shot by shot correction to get any decent results in my opinion.

You seem to have a quite clear picture of how you want these edits to look, I can only echo what Harmy said before me, and in the end, it's really what you like and prefer that's important, I wish you good luck with your project.

Harmy said:

Well, I wasn't talking about my current project, I meant my old Partly Despecialized Edition.

Yes, I understood that, but wasn't your project Partly because you couldn't at the time accomplish what you wanted to do?

Yeah, the intent of your project Harmy is something entirely different but in the end I guess it doesn't matter where a thread is located, or what I think, I don't want to take on a role as a forum police, don't know why I even mentioned it. Forget what I said. :)

It wasn't me, didn't see your earlier post until now.

I will probably get back my computer at the end of this week.

Harmy said:

As to the Emperor, I'd recommend using Ady's 97SE 1080p reconstruction MKV (it's on tehparadox). That's where mine came from...

Keep in mind that he didn't fully restore that scene, see the lack of blinking lights in the wall behind the hologram. Just thought I would point that out as it is easy to miss small details like that.

I often hear that one of the main problems with the 2004 transfer of Empire is that it's too blue compared to how it originally looked, this popular thought needs to go away. The original Empire had always a lot of blue in it, especially on Hoth. The 2004 transfer has instead for the most part an ugly cyan tint, and that's a big difference.

Not to discourage you OMEN, but besides having crushed blacks, it also have many instances of clipped whites, and many scenes are already more bright in the SE compared to the original, so I'm afraid that just slightly boost the brightness and reduce the blue will not help making this disaster of a video transfer look anything close to how this film looked originally.

An example of the clipped white levels in the 2004 transfer.

2004 DVD

SWE LD

GOUT

Even the THX transfer with its blown out whites have more detail in the bright areas than the DVD in some parts. The old LD transfers aren't perfect either, this example have the contrast too low, but it helps demonstrate that the crushed blacks aren't the only problem with the 2004 video. One setting for the whole film doesn't solve the problems with either Star Wars or Empire, there's simply too many problems that are changing depending on what scene you are looking at, there's no way around it than to correct it scene by scene if you want some good results.

Look at this matte-shot for example, the '04 DVD at the top and the '97 SE below:

A few moments later when it cuts back to the bridge on the 2004 DVD, someone have turned on the red lights:

Still look lifeless, see how pale the skintones are. Anyway, this wild inconsistency is present in all levels throughout the '04 transfers, from colors to saturation to contrast and brightness. Combine that with the artificial sharpening, grain reduction, starfields and engine glows that have somehow lost their former glint, and finally add some horrible audio re-mixes and added digital effects, and you will have something that is starting to resemble Lucas' vision of how these films were always meant to be seen.

Btw, shouldn't this be in the fan-edit section of the forum?

captainsolo, the actual discs are marked Technidisc.

pittrek, yeah that may also be an option.

Sluggo said:

I'd be satisfied with the major variants on a branching DVD.  

Both '77 and '79 versions of Star Wars with multiple audio tracks on the same blu-ray. 

I'm sure you meant the '81 re-release with the revised opening, '79 was just a theatrical re-release of the original film.

I agree with Sluggo, just keep it simple:

1977 Star Wars, with the three original audio mixes and a possible branching for the revised '81 opening.

1980 Empire, with the two original audio mixes and a possible branching for the early 70mm cut.

1983 Jedi, with the two original audio mixes.

penguinofgreatness said:

I just just finished watching this. Even with its various defects I loved it. I can't wait to see a transfer of Empire. If you ever redo this transfer, could you please include Hairy Hen's mix as an option? That alone would make it my favorite copy of Star Wars.

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. :) When I return to it I will probably use his improved 70mm reconstruction. Like russ15 said, the video of the current one is synced up frame by frame with the NTSC GOUT, so it's easy to replace the audio with your favorite mix that has been synced to it, I will probably do the same with my 2nd version, that way I don't need to sacrifice precious video bitrate. If you don't know how you demux and remux the DVD with your audio of choice, ask me and I'll describe it for you. It's a very fast and easy procedure.

My Empire SWE LD is actually already captured with all files saved on a external HD. I'm not sure yet how I will treat it on that one as it lacks many frames at every reel change, more than 100 frames compared to the GOUT transfer.

Not an answer to your question, but the print your friend have seems to be the original Return of the Jedi not the SE.

:)

You_Too said:

Speaking of translations, the swedish subs on the GOUT are a bit funny sometimes too. Where Han says to Chewie "Get in there, you big furry oaf!" they've translated it as "Ner, din håriga gorilla!". (Down, you hairy gorilla!) Kind of bad translation considering there are no gorillas in the Star Wars galaxy. :)

I'm pretty sure that's a leftover from the iconic '77 translation. :) We should perhaps continue this conversation in Puggo's thread. Anyway, I really recommend his 16mm if only to have the original bad translation preserved.

Dubbing isn't done in Sweden, only if it's a film made for children. (take that Lucas ;) Nowadays you can often either see the dubbed version or the original english spoken version of a Disney or Pixar film in the cinema for example. So in the old days they often just placed the swedish subs over the original subs or over/below them, could be pretty ugly sometimes.

When the SW-prequel hit our cinemas in '99, there was some controversy due to Lucasfilm/Fox having done a swedish crawl and ALTA card for the first time, thinking they would do us a favor. Older people were used to and wanted to have the original english crawl with swedish subs instead.

Fun facts: in Sweden you had to be 11 years old for the first film in '77 and 15 years old! for Empire in '80, which caused major problems for the cinema staff with uncomprehending audience who tried to refer to the first film's 11-year limit. For the '82 re-release it was censored to be allowed from 11 years old after some cuts on 8 different places had been made with a total of 7 minutes cut from the film. Empire was treated like a goddamn horror film in Sweden. :)

But if you were younger than 15 in '80 you could go see it if you just brought your parents, that's what I did. :) Sorry for going a little off topic.

You_Too said:

Isn't there swedish subs in that version? Or do you mean the swedish subs match the same appear/disappear times? I haven't seen that version myself yet, but I wonder if I would be able to watch Chewie being called Tugg. haha :)

Yeah, that's a wonderful translation. ;)

There is both swedish subs and the original english subs for Greedo present, that's how it often was handled in the old days. You have a still of the subs from the swedish print in this thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Greedo-Jabba-subtitles-theatrical-placement-and-fonts/topic/11463/ See the third pic.

Harmy said:

Actually, the frame that Mike posted in his forum has a subtitle, while in Puggo's the subtitle doesn't appear until one frame later. 

Interesting discovery, Moth3r's bootleg also match the timing of Grande, and IIRC the Swedish 16mm, would be interesting to see how the other bootlegs compare.

There is definitely some problem at my end, don't know if it is some setting on the computer I have at the moment that is causing it, hopefully someone else will join and seed soon.

Hi bkev, sorry I am now seeding, but my upload-speed seems to be terrible at the moment for some reason. :(

Was able to check out the extras on the blu-ray, some nice little things scattered throughout the classic films material here and there, but as expected what an incredible package of revisionism, whenever someone talks about how they made the effects or display where they used matte paintings etc, they almost always end it by showing a clip of effects made in '97 or '04, I understand they don't have the original video material scanned in any high quality but come on, this is a fucking joke, the extra material on this box should instead have been the computer nerds talking about how they altered and how they updating these classic films for every release.

Talk about younger generations getting a wrong picture on how visual effects looked in the 70's or early '80's. This is almost getting me more upset than the actual suppression of the original films, you have all these old fine talented ILM'ers sitting and talking about how they manage to create these shots and then they show clips often created by someone else in 1997 or 2004. Respect.

Even used, I would never buy this ridiculous Happy Meal set.

Yeah, I feel it's gonna hurt the picture quality more than it will help, this is one of the reasons I consider to release a DVD of the PAL LD at a later time when this one is done, either in NTSC or just as it is depending on what is wanted as I think some of you will appreciate it.

The thing that kills me a little about this project is that no matter how fine SilverWook's captures are, I could've produced a cleaner transfer if I had been able to average or make a multi-cap-median to get rid of player generated video noise and video dropouts etc. But that is easy for me to say when we only now know which captures was needed. But I have studied the different captures and choosen the best parts of every one I received to make it the best I could. In the end we will definitely have something much better than is available to us at the moment.

When I get my PC back, there's basically just syncing up the audio that is left to do. I should also mention that nothing special have been done with the colortiming, I just set the black and white level and boosted the colors slightly, I will also get rid of the slight red tint seen throughout the film, most noticable in the white void scenes, I will post some before and after pictures later so you don't think I'm fiddle too much here.

SilverWook said:

The evil that is Coily will not die easily. ;)

Is the conversion from PAL to NTSC a long and laborious process?

At least the evil is reduced by half now. 

No, it is a quite fast process, thankfully.

SilverWook said: 

Came across a THX still on Ebay with an interesting little detail in it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CT-PHOTO-auk-489-Movie-THX-1138-/260900565441?pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item3cbee2b1c1

Nice still. Yeah, another car in the upper corner. Don't think I've seen that one before.

Spaced Ranger said:

With the source already this badly halo'ed, you must de-halo, especially before applying any sharpening, to get decent results. To demonstrate:

I max'ed the settings on "DeHalo_alpha" (rx=3.0, ry=3.0, lowsens=0, highsens=0), a script I copied somewhere -- DeHalo_alpha(clip clp, float "rx", float "ry", float "darkstr", float "brightstr", float "lowsens", float "highsens", float "ss") -- but couldn't make all the halo-ing all disappear. Maybe there's a better version? It softens the picture a little but following up with "LimitedSharpen" (made it pretty strong here, too -- strength=600, soft=true, overshoot=0, exborder=4) nicely brings the crispness back ... for a better overall result. (Of course, you would tweak the settings for better balance than I did for this proof-of-concept.)

The thing is, no sharpening was applied, that is how badly oversharpened this LD is in many scenes, the PAL transfer don't suffer it for the most part but the NTSC is so much better in terms of detail, colors, cropping and in how clean the capture is, so using the PAL is not an option despite the severe haloing in the NTSC transfers. 

I was actually about to try out some de-haloing just as my PC crashed all the time so I was never able to see the results. Thanks for posting those examples, much appreciated. :) The result of de-halo is what scares me, the halos are reduced, not gone but you end up with side-effects that is worse than the original problem, but I'll see what I can do. I can clearly see some "water-color painting effect" in your LimitedSharpen example.

MonoMix_1977 said:

I know about most, if not all, of the dialouge and visual changes for the Mono and Stereo versions of ANH and TESB. I was the one who recently added them in detail to the Wikipedia article before it was almost completely abolished, save the deleted scenes, by "the source police."

So what are these visual changes between the film prints with mono and stereo tracks you're talking about? Empire never even got a mono mix.

You_Too, if you're still working on those subs, may I suggest to perhaps squeeze the letters vertically slightly, that's what I would do if I re-did my avisynth subs today after seeing better references, an easy way to see what I mean is the letter g for example. But yours already destroys my subs as far as I can see on that pic, great work. :)

Nice to hear that the opening is ok.

Yeah, I can see the unstable color/brightness there, definitely a limitation of the source material.

Another sample: http://www.sendspace.com/file/nea2gy

this one is a short sample from one of the problematic reels with the infamous "Coily" (white dirt) but this time from the UK LD source Jaitea provided. When we now don't get people cut off by the bad cropping the US LD had, I think I can live with it.

I should also mention that I did try to get rid of it with a delogo filter but unfortunately the results weren't good enough, I prefer a clean white speck over a blurry patch in the video. ;)

Thanks for the feedback, yeah those white dots are that film damage we talked about earlier, but I cannot see that continuous change in colour/brightness you describe, it may be the fluctuations and the slightly unstable colors and brightness in this old transfer you're seeing, I don't know, whatever it is you're seeing it's not something I have introduced. What bothers me in that scene are the extreme amount of haloing/edge enhancement and video dropouts.

So the transition from the clean opening titles to LD footage aren't too jarring then?